


pain au chocolat

by valerian



Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Adventure, F/M, Humor, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-01-22
Updated: 2014-01-22
Packaged: 2018-01-09 14:39:01
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1147167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/valerian/pseuds/valerian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He's got a sweet tooth, and she's got the goods. The only thing standing between him and utter bliss is a simple matter of trust.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. sour

In wartime, any piece of heaven is appreciated. For Gaius, thief extraordinaire and dessert connoisseur, that's a slice of chocolate mousse cake, or apple pie, or even a simple taffy. 'Cause life's short. Why go through it all bitter and mopey?

Sweet and sugary not only tastes better but also feels better. Like a hot bath in winter. Like an intelligence run gone right.

Like lying on your back under the cool shade of a willow tree, hiding from the oppressive sun on a humid summer's day.

He takes the obligatory lollipop out of his mouth, flicks the stick into the grass several paces away. A light breeze hums over and into his skin. Nice. The branches and leaves of the tree obscure the sky above him, offering small peeks at blue here and there as they sway.

Also nice.

I could die right here, right now, he thinks. No one would care. He himself wouldn't even care. This is the life he had always meant to live. Even amid chaos, darkness, the perpetual threat of death—it's all good. His pockets are lined with sweets, his existence rolled in swaths of Mother Nature's silky smooth embrace.

Just let me die, right here, right now. At peace, at home. A short drift away, and I'm there….

Gaius dozes off, awakened occasionally by the sound of fellow soldiers laughing as they stroll past, by the distant clinking of heavy armor and swords against each other. Interweaving the encampment's melody is a new voice; well, both new and old. His left eye twitches at the memory of red hair and persuasive smiles. Gods damn that damned…damned…

"Robber Baron," he intones, lazily opening one eye to address the figure hovering over his supine form. She's got a curious expression on her both-familiar-and-not-familiar face, all eyes and nose and lips and tricks.

"Pardon?" Anna asks, tilting her head to the side. Her ponytail shifts with her movements, and Gaius closes his eyes—eye—again.

"Go away. I don't want to talk to you."

"Why?" He hears the earnestness in her voice, the slight inhale of breath. "I don't believe we've met."

"Yeah. I'd like to keep it that way."

"I'm Anna." He imagines she's holding her hand out for a shake.

"I know what you're doing, Robber Baron. And no, I don't want to buy anything from you."

"I'm not making a sale. Just your acquaintance."

"Oh yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Fine." He sits up suddenly, and blood rushes to his head, rendering him momentarily dizzy. "Ugh."

"Are you alright?"

"I'm Gaius. Now leave me alone." He fishes another lollipop from his cloak and scoots backward on the grass until he's leaning against the trunk of the tree. He stuffs the candy into his mouth. Lemon. "Ah. Hits the spot."

"You're very funny," Anna says. She makes herself comfortable next to him, brushing invisible dirt from her pants. "I would like for us to be friends."

"No." He looks down the hill. There's a lake at the bottom, and he'd very much like to swim right now.

"I don't have many yet. I'm new."

"I figured."

"Yeah."

A silence falls and stretches for a few minutes. Gaius tries not to think about how uncomfortable it is to have a stranger sit under his tree, invade his personal death wish. Gods, can't he have one nice thing in his life?

"Look, if you're trying to sell me something, forget it. I'm not buying from you or your ilk ever. Ever."

"My 'ilk'? What's that supposed to mean?"

He turns his head, looks her in the eyes. They're brown. "I don't trust you, Robber Baron."

"'Robber Baron'? You said it again! Why do you call me that?"

"Because that's what you and your sisters are. You're Robber Barons. You steal from the poor to benefit your own rich…ness."

"Uh huh. Interesting, interesting. And this is an accusation coming from a thief of great renown."

"'Great renown'? Why, thank you." He smirks, and she raises her eyebrows, unimpressed.

"Seriously. What's your problem with me?"

"What's my problem with you?"

"Yes! Why are you being so openly hostile to a friendly stranger? Are you like this towards all women?" She narrows her eyes. "Is this another Lon'qu situation, because if it is—"

"Let me tell you a story, Robber Baron, about somebody you may know."

She crosses her legs. "…Okay."

"Long, long ago, I used to be a blacksmith. Well, a blacksmith's apprentice. I was seventeen. I had just finished my apprenticeship when my mentor up and died. His wife had always had a bit of a thing for me, which is totally reasonable since I'm unbelievably sexy and irresistible—Nuh uh! Don't interrupt!" He holds up a hand, and Anna's open mouth, after a brief struggle, closes.

"Anyway, like I was saying, she tried to get me to take over his shop, but I didn't feel comfortable with her hitting on me all the time. Who would? I was just seventeen. Chicks were throwing themselves at me left and right." He holds up his hand again. "I wasn't about to be stuffed into some old lady's purse. So I did what any seventeen-year-old boy would do. I left to find my own place in the world. Figured I'd be a valuable asset to anyone who needed a smith.

"But I was wrong. Most places didn't need my talents. I started going from market stall to market stall begging for work or my next meal. And guess who I came across, who decided to take me on in exchange for a crate of pies."

"One of my sisters?"

"Yep. One of your sisters. Anna." Gaius gives the girl a once-over, withholding the urge to scoff. "She looked just like you but younger. And she agreed to give me all those yummy pies if I helped her forge her customers' weapons for a full day. I agreed. Why wouldn't I? I was young and hungry. Even though some of the customers asked for upgrades I had never attempted, I did them anyway and to great effect, too. By the end of the day I was sweating and starving, and your sister gave me that crate of pies, promising they were fresh and delicious. And from what I could tell when I lifted the lid, they were."

"So…"

"But they weren't. Not all of those pies were fresh. Most, practically all, were stale! Your sister had stacked them very strategically. The top two layers of pies were fresh. The bottom four? Stale. Inedible. Disgusting. She had ripped me off a day's worth of labor in exchange for a crate of mostly stale pies." He leans in until he can smell jasmine. "Robber Baron."

The corners of Anna's lips pull upward. "Wow. I'm sorry to hear of such an oversight on her part, Gaius—"

"'Oversight'? 'Oversight'? It was not an 'oversight'! It was an intentional attempt to dump her unusable stock upon an innocent, gullible boy. So, two words," he holds up two fingers, "Robber Baron. Also, I never trusted any one of you again from that day on. Ever."

"I'm so sorry to hear about the poor service. That is mighty bad for our reputation. I'll have to talk to my sister about it. In the meantime, perhaps I could make it up to you myself?" She nudges his shoulder with her own. "Plus interest?"

"Pah! Hell no. You think I'd strike another deal with you devils? In your dreams." He scoots away from her, and she stubbornly follows.

"Aw, c'mon! It's easy. I'll give you all those pies you were cheated out of, plus chocolate. No strings attached."

"Tempting." Very tempting. Almost too tempting to resist. Yet no, he couldn't do it. He's no prostitute. He can't be bought. Well, technically he can but not for this. Not about this. This incident started the chain of injustices he had had to endure in the following years. If he doesn't hold onto the bitterness, then he has no explanation for what, for who he's become.

He's gotta make a point.

"But no."

"But Gaius—"

"No 'but Gaius'!" He stands, and again, blood rushes to his head. He places a hand against the tree trunk, presses the heel of his palm against his eyes. "Ugh…just no. No. I don't trust you. Don't talk to me."

With those final words, he turns and stomps away in righteous indignation. It makes him feel childish, bull-headed, but hey. You can't be the bigger man every day. That, and the candy, would probably give him ulcers.

Meanwhile Anna, amused, watches him go. She had just spent the entire afternoon convincing one soldier after another to buy at least one thing or another from her store of wares. What's one reluctant customer out of a hundred?

She uncrosses her legs, puts a finger to her chin.

Still, she thinks, it would be nice to place him upon the Reluctant-Turned-Loyal-Customer Trophy Case. Gods, that would be sweet! Besides the sonata of gold jingling in her pocket, nothing thrills her quite like making a difficult sale. It's just a matter of moves and countermoves. Like playing chess, which she has always excelled at, or dueling. Not with swords but with the mind and with words.

She stretches herself out beneath the willow tree, closing her eyes to the sights of summer. Plans start to take shape in her brain; schemes. And not just about luring Gaius in. This is wartime, and in wartime people are weak. People are desperate.

In wartime, people throw their money away. What's the use of hoarding money during one's potential last days? Best spend it all on luxuries you had never dared purchase before. You may never get another chance!

With these thoughts dancing across her neural pathways, she dozes off, dreaming of her mountain of riches, her spoils of war, and a very tall stack of stale pies.


	2. dense

For the next two weeks, he avoids her. Some small part of his soul, the part lodged between his ego and his pride, calls the other part a craven, but whatever; he's good at running away. It's one of his most marketable skills, the one contractors pay immoral sums for.

Plus, running away is easy. Pain-free.

And even if he doesn't beat feet outta there anytime he glimpses her vampiric cloak or witchy shoes, he's got nothing to say to her. They established that quite firmly in their first-slash-last encounter.

The only problem with the whole avoiding thing is that Stahl, that soft-hearted, humble, selfless idiot, notices and just  _has_  to bring it up over lunch.

They're picking at salted bear jerky for the fourth day in a row, drenched in sweat and companionable silence, when the idiot stops chewing and lets out an alarmingly low whistle.

"What? What's happening?" Gaius looks left and right, up and higher.

"Behind you." Stahl nods at something over Gaius' left shoulder.

He turns to look. It's Anna—more specifically, the backside of Anna. She's bent at the waist, ears pressed against Virion's whispering lips. She's got a customary finger on her chin, a coy smile beneath perky nose.

Typical.

Gaius rolls his eyes and turns back to the idiot. "I don't see anything."

"Sure you do. Did. You were looking for pretty long. Six seconds, to be exact. I counted."

"How observant of you. You should ask Chrom for a raise."

"I just might." Stahl grins. "But don't deflect. We're talking about you, not me. Don't think I haven't noticed you running the other way anytime she comes near."

"What're yatalkin' 'bout?" Gaius' mouth is suddenly full of bear.

"Anna. And don't lie."

The liar chews, swallows. Picks up his flask of something-something and takes a very long swig.

Stahl waits and watches. Stubborn little idiot shit.

"So?" Gaius finally says, throat numb and eyes stinging. "Can't a guy change directions without being judged?"

"You're avoiding her. Care to tell me why?"

"No."

"Man, c'mon! Did you have a fight or something? I didn't know you knew each other."

"We don't."

"Then why do you keep running away from her? Did you…did you try something?" Stahl's tone shifts from unwelcome-inquisitive to even-less-welcome sympathetic. "Gaius, did she reject you?"

Scoff. "In your dreams."

"Then what's up? You can tell me. We're friends. You can trust me."

"Uh huh. No."

"Dude, seriously?"

Dude sighs, rubs his eyes, and involuntarily glances over his shoulder again. She's standing straight now, but it's as though she can sense his gaze on her ass, because she turns her head and throws him a matching hooded-lid stare, smirk in place. It's a cheeky little challenge, and the self-loathing that blossoms in Gaius' gut is immediate. Intense.

So he tells Stahl everything. And Stahl, that  _idiot_ , starts to laugh.

"Wait, wait, wait! So let me get this straight. You're mad at Anna for something her identical twin sister did to you seven years ago? What the hell, man?"

"I'm not mad at this Anna, per se. Just wary."

"That is fucked up. And dumb." Pause. "Fumbed up."

"You're brighter than the sun today."

"I'm just saying, Gaius. It's weird to hold a grudge against the wrong girl. It feels kinda, I dunno, superficial? Like you're prejudiced against her just because she looks a lot like someone who wronged you long ago."

"Huh. Never thought about it that way."

"Yeah, well, think about it now."

He does, pulling red licorice from his cloak, tearing it into spindly strands. So what if Stahl has a very logical and reasonable point? "Still don't trust her or her type. They're robber barons. All they care about is money."

"In her defense, you care about money too. You're a thief, remember?"

"No. I completely forgot about one of my defining, identifying traits."

Stahl laughs and picks up a well-polished apple. "People are more than their identifying traits, Gaius. Trust me. You can't really know someone until you  _really_  know them."

"How wise."

"Stop being sarcastic for a second, and admit that I'm right."

"She does only care for gold. Gold's like her soul food or something."

"It's her fuel, yeah, but she's a traveling merchant. What more can you expect?"

"Not sure. Though…"

"Though?"

"Though." Nah. "It's stupid."

"What? What's stupid?"

What's stupid is that Miss Moneybags only cares about gold. So, it naturally follows that he oughta use gold against her. Or… _from_ her.

He drops licorice into his mouth. "I'm thinking about revenge, Stahl."

"Huh? For what? What'd she do to you?"

"She didn't do anything in particular to  _me_ , but she could stand to learn to care about other things too. Things other than gold, y'know?"

Stahl's shaking his head, eyes widening in alarm. "Uh, no, I don't know."

"It's fine. I gotta get going now. I have thief things to do, schemes to enact, yadda, yadda, can't talk. See ya'." He stands, his steps full of spring.

"Hey, where are you going?" Stahl calls after him.

Gaius turns, salutes. Walking to his tent because he'll be needing his tools, he unwraps a caramel cube and pops it into his mouth. Sugar time.

* * *

Escaping from Virion's clutches is no easy task.

"Like riding buck naked through a blizzard," Sully once described it. "Good luck being his new plaything."

Hah. Good luck indeed. Anna manages to dodge the blue-haired Lothario long enough to take a nice bath. She's gaining a reputation around camp for being the Longest Soaker, but she doesn't mind the title. It's kinda cute. And what's wrong with bathing yourself thoroughly?

The recent humidity magnifies the stench of body odor, makes it linger in the air around you like fruit flies to rotten bananas. She's a saleswoman. She has to smell nice. Who's going to buy from her if she doesn't?

Besides, being in the bathing tent is beneficial to business. She has ridiculously luminous skin—not a product of any lotion: a gift from the gods, but the other girls don't need to know that. As long as she's flaunting her smooth arms and legs, she's got her bathing neighbors wrapped around her little finger, begging for tub after tub of moisturizing cream.

"You look like a doll or something," Nowi says, wonder in her voice.

"Thank you, dear, but you flatter me. It's just the cream. Would you care to try some? I'll give you an extra large tub with an extra large discount."

Nowi nods slowly, running her small fingers down Anna's arm. "Wow."

Yeah. Chaching, chaching. She can practically hear the coins fall, drowning out her current discomfort.

After her bath, and another tub of moisturizer sold (to Cordelia, who doesn't actually need it but buys one anyway because Anna's  _such_  a good seller), she pulls on a fresh set of clothes. The day's not quite over yet. The sun has barely gone down, and that means her purse can still be filled.

Walking back to her tent, sword fastened to her belt, she hums a little ditty Mom taught her years ago. And speaking of her mother, she really ought to return that last letter, as well as all the other letters from her sisters far and wide. She misses her family from time to time, you know? She can be sentimental.

Amid her musings, however, Anna doesn't forget to check her tent for signs of intrusion. Had she forgotten, she might not have spotted the new wrinkles in the canvas, the mud on the zipper, and the candy wrapper in the grass, as if whoever broke into her living space had wanted to be obvious; had wanted to be discovered.

So it comes as no surprise to see Gaius kneeling in front of her box of gemstones, collected to adorn the engagement rings that will soon be in high demand.

Despite the lack of surprise, there's a rush of adrenaline, a spike in anger, that courses through her veins. So the craven's finally mustered up the nerve to face her? Lovely.

She forces herself to repress it all and to crawl on her hands and knees until she's practically pushing him up against the side of the tent.

"How may I help you?" she breathes onto his neck, inexplicably pleased to see his ears color red.

"Hi." Looking at her out of the corner of his eyes, he flashes a sly, stupid smile she wants to punch so badly. Gods, damn it.

Resist. Be cool.

"Fancy seeing you here, stranger," she says in a voice reserved for silk-gowned nobility.

"Yeah, uh, care to give me some personal space?"

"Sure. Care to explain why you're invading my personal space?"

"No reason, really, besides ye olde curiosity."

"Curiosity." She stares at him as if he were stupid. Which he is. "Curiosity?!"

He has a lollipop in his mouth, and his breath smells like strawberries. "That's what I said."

Okay. That's it. Nobody comes into  _her_  tent and acts like he's the one in control.

"No more Missus Nice Merchant. Get out of my tent," she hisses, finally backing away. "And don't touch my stuff ever again. Ever. You hear that?"

"Whoah, Robber Baron, relax." He turns around and holds his hands up in mock-surrender, and it makes her want to punch him again.

"This is my last warning, Gaius the Nimble. You won't be very nimble for much longer if you don't scram in the next five seconds."

"Let me explain—"

"One."

"Seriously, RB, let me explain—"

"Two."

"Fine, fine. I'm outta here." He breaks for the exit quickly, but she grabs the back of his cloak a little too roughly. It makes him choke for a second, and she should feel bad at how happy that makes her.

"Oh, shit. I'm sorry! I didn't mean to hurt you," she says, mostly lying.

"It's fine." His voice is scratchy through his coughs. "No harm done. I'll just be…going…now...like you said."

"Wait!" She doesn't let go of his cloak. "Empty your pockets first."

"What?"

"I'm not a moron. Empty your pockets!"

"You sure?" He raises an eyebrow, tilts his head. That chump. "I've got a lot of candy, and it could dirty up—"

"Are you deaf? I said, empty. Your. Fucking. Pockets." Brigands, thieves are no laughing matter to a traveling merchant. "I trust you about as much as you trust me."

"Okay. Alright. You got me, Robber Baron." He's grinning again as he pulls piece after piece of candy from his pockets, like some sort of diabetic magician.

"Gross. Gaius, how can you eat this?" She picks up a melted bar of chocolate, scrunching her nose up in disgust.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." He showers her sleeping bag with a handful of colorful mints. "There. That's the last of it."

Anna surveys the mess, disappointed to not see any of her personal items among the sweets. "That's it?"

"Yep."

"Don't lie, you sneak. What did you take from me?"

"Nothing. I told you. I was just curious."

"You do this to everyone you meet then? You break into their tent while they bathe and rifle through their stuff?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"That's against camp rules. I could tell Chrom about this. You'd be kicked out."

"That possibility doesn't bother me at all."

"You'd be out of a paycheck."

"Working for the Shepherds, I'm making a third of what I could be making elsewhere."

"Then tell me why you're here."

"Curiosity—"

"And don't say curiosity." She's still holding onto his cloak. "For the last two weeks, you've been running away at the mere sound of my voice! Why did you decide today of all days to sneak into my tent and mess with my stuff without even  _trying_  to disguise your footprints? Are you suddenly, like,  _into_  me or something?"

"Please, don't flatter yourself." He yanks his cloak from her grip and starts to stuff his treats back into his pockets. "I've just…forgiven you."

"Forgiven me. Right."

"Yeah, right."

"For something I didn't actually do to you."

"I realized that, yeah. So consider my presence in your tent a bit of a peace offering—an 'I'm not mad at you anymore'."

This is weird. This is beyond weird. Anna's not sure how to respond, what to respond. He's wearing that impossible smile again, and his ears are no longer abashedly red, which means he needs to get out. Now.

"Get out of my tent, Gaius. And, once I go through my inventory, if I find that you've taken anything from me today, there will be blood to pay."

"Sure, sure." He picks up his last mint, flips it into his open mouth. "Have a good evening, RB."

And then he leaves.

And Anna, left to count her coins (intact), her gems (untouched), and the rest of her inventory (all present), is perplexed.

Until she settles in to sleep that night. Looking at the sword by her pillow once, twice, eyeing the bare keychain again and again, she realizes what that damned dastard had stolen:

Mr. Sprinkles!

Poor thing.


End file.
